Does Your Examination Communicate Cooperatively?
By Timothy Habick, Ph.D.

Although we usually are unaware of it, we follow a set of “cooperative” rules when we have conversations. People who write high-stakes examinations must become keenly aware of these rules and apply them meticulously. It is each testing program’s duty to ensure that its examinations reach high levels of compliance with the rules of cooperative communication.

So what is cooperative communication?

Cooperative communication means talking and writing in a way that takes into account the overall context of the situation, with particular attention paid to the assumed knowledge and reasonable expectations of the person or people on the other side of the exchange. When people communicate cooperatively, they appear to follow certain “rules.”

The “rules” of cooperative communication were not imposed by someone in authority. Rather, these rules reflect the expectations that people have when they talk to each other. The philosopher Paul Grice observed natural, successful linguistic interactions and inferred from them a few major rules that everyone seems to follow.  He called them maxims.

• Be truthful.
• Be clear.
• Be relevant.
• Be appropriately informative.